Count Super Mario, not sheep: Nintendo announces sleep-monitoring device

This is not a Nintendo article about how well it’s suddenly doing, this is a story about sleep, and how Nintendo wants to monitor our resting time.

Nintendo will in fact, make sleeping fun again as it introduces its very own sleep-monitoring device, according to Reuters. Earlier this week, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata took to the stage to announce the company’s first sleep-monitoring device (coming before March 2016), developed in partnership with ResMed Inc. Does this mean we’ll be counting jumping Mario’s instead of sheep?

Nintendo already has a few fitness devices already cluttering up living rooms, like the Wii Balance Board, so what can a sleep-monitoring device bring to the party? “By using our know-how in gaming… to analyse sleep and fatigue, we can create something fun,” By 2016, Nintendo fully expects its healthcare division to become profitable.

Creating healthy sleeping habits, that’s what Nintendo’s device is all about. This palm-sized product, according to the reports, will sit next to the bed and monitor sleeping conditions with microwave transmission sensors, which are totally safe. It may be expensive as well, as Iwata suggested that the sleep-monitoring device (which no-one outside of a small group has yet seen) will be subscription-based, and may not be available as a once-off purchase.

Iwata refused to speculate further on the price. “We only start something new if we think we will be able to create a big market, but as I’m not able to discuss pricing plans and other details today I don’t think there’s much point in giving a figure for our projected scale.”

Image via puccadominyo.deviantart